Wednesday, November 13, 2013

How Did Your Fantasy Football Draft Hold Up?

Every team in the NFL has now played at least 9 games, which means the season is half over! We spent the months, weeks and days leading up to our fantasy football drafts studying, doing mock drafts and researching to ensure we didn't make a mistake when our draft date arrived. As usual, we all have that one move where we say "WHY DID WE PICK PLAYER A OVER PLAYER B?" Don't feel bad, we all do it, every season.

Looking back to before the season started, and drafts were happening twice a night for some of us, this is what the average 1st round looked like in a 12 man league:

Pretty straight forward, 11 RBs and Calvin Johnson, standard. Sometimes you saw an Aaron Rodgers or Drew Brees, maybe even a Jimmy Graham, but for most of us, maybe in a different order, this is how our first round looked. Well Martin and Foster are done for the season, Ray Rice has not gained 75 yards rushing this season and Trent Richardson was traded and in 7 games has rushed for just 250 yards on 88 carries.

It is hard to second guess yourself considering that RBs are impossible to find once the season kicks off and these days you are forced to pick up the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 3rd and 4th RBs in Brian Leonard and Bobby Rainey.

So let's take a look at how fantasy football drafts have compared to actual production on the gridiron through 10 weeks in the NFL based on the following scoring system:

CLEARLY, QBs are weighed heavily in this league, however, their value is well represented as you can see with 3 RBs and a TE with less points being more valuable than Stafford. I think it is fair to say these 10 guys have been the best fantasy players this season.

When looking at the rankings here, remember that some teams have played 8 games and some have played 10 already. Clearly Knowshon Moreno is the highlight of this list, but guys like Jordy Nelson are slowly falling off thanks to an Aaron Rodgers injury while Riley Cooper is climbing thanks to the great play of Nick Foles. But if you pay attention, 17 of the top 50 players are QBs, and that is why it is more important to focus on drafting RBs early on with just 14 of them in the Top 50, including Moreno who was an after thought during draft season, Fred Jackson who splits carries with Spiller and Giovani Bernard who is a rookie that is just finally taking over RB duties in Cincy. 15 of the Top 50 players are WRs.